Passengers Bowing Their Heads on the Subway Now... Koreans Missing '40 Hours a Month' on YouTube

WiseApp Aggregation Results
Nearly Double in 5 Years

The average monthly YouTube usage time per person in South Korea has exceeded 40 hours for the first time, according to a recent survey. WiseApp, a service specializing in application (app), retail, and goods analysis, announced the results of its analysis on YouTube app usage trends on the 4th.

[Image source=WiseApp]

WiseApp conducted a sample survey of domestic users of the two major smartphone operating systems, Android (Google) and iOS (Apple), and found that as of January, the total YouTube app usage time reached 111.9 billion minutes, marking an all-time high. This represents a 2.2-fold increase from 51.9 billion minutes in January 2019 over five years. During the same period, the average usage time per person on the YouTube app also nearly doubled, rising from 21 hours to 40 hours. WiseApp stated, "January of this year is the first time the average monthly YouTube usage time per person has exceeded 40 hours."

YouTube has become the most popular platform in South Korea. The introduction of a concise editing style and short-form videos (Shorts) launched in July 2021 has driven users, including Generation Z.

Already, YouTube became the largest mobile platform in terms of usage in South Korea last December. According to data compiled by mobile big data company IGAWorks' Mobile Index, YouTube ranked first with 45.65 million MAU (monthly active users) in December last year. It surpassed KakaoTalk, which had been the number one platform domestically with 45.54 million users.